LPD Seeking Information on Shooting of 12-Year-Old Youth

Wednesday

Feb 27, 2013 at 4:52 PM

A nickname. An address. A detail from an overheard conversation. Lakeland police detectives are looking for tips — no matter how small — that could lead them to the people who riddled a West Third Street home with bullets and wounded a 12-year-old boy.

By MATTHEW PLEASANTTHE LEDGER

LAKELAND | A nickname. An address. A detail from an overheard conversation.

Lakeland police detectives are looking for tips — no matter how small — that could lead them to the people who riddled a West Third Street home with bullets and wounded a 12-year-old boy.

Detectives publicized a $1,000 reward for information Wednesday through Heartland Crime Stoppers. Phones had rung with a few tips before the reward fliers circulated, said Chip Brown, the program's director, but he expects more to arrive as news about the shooting spreads.

Any piece of information unknown to detectives is worthy of submitting, Brown said. And anonymity is guaran-teed.

"Any tidbit whatsoever," Brown said. "If they know something and they haven't see it on TV or newspaper, they can report it."

Aleek Saint-Aime was wounded three times Monday as he sat on the porch of his Lakeland home with a cousin. A silver and black SUV, possibly a 1990s vehicle, pulled in front of the home about 9 p.m. and a shooter opened fire. Aleek's mother and aunt drove him to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where he remained Wednesday.

The shots struck Aleek in the right arm, right hip and lower left leg, relatives said. Melissa Noel, his mother, said he faces a long recovery that began with surgery Tuesday.

Doctors implanted a rod in his arm where a bullet damaged a bone, Noel said. She is concerned about Aleek and her family returning home with the shooter still free.

"He's very cold against the world now. He doesn't want to leave the hospital," she said of Aleek.